April 6.
\nThe day my father called & told me he had cancer.
\nJune 10
\nThe day he died.
\nJanuary 22
\nHis birthday.<\/p>\n
I will have these dates, like beads on a rosary, tied around my heart for the rest of my life. I’m glad today’s anniversary didn’t create paralysis, albeit, a little fluff of down, some sadness, soaking up my residual sadness of last week, when we went through layoffs. I used my father’s death as an excuse at the time, when a co-worker walked in on me at my desk, dabbing my eyes. Mentally, I kind of gave dad a begrudging grin, like, “thanks, man”…. and I also felt guilty. Lying to cover up what was going on, doing it by using the most sacredly painful piece of my life. But I’ve no poker face and I had to say something. <\/p>\n
So, tonight, when I walked into Panera to pick up a loaf of bread, I got the sesame semolina. It was his favorite. And I smiled to myself, wistfully. It is in those small moments I hear his voice, just the most ordinary of sentences or comments (“Oh, I love that bread.”). I love that bread, too, I love it more because you loved it, and can we pretend for just half a second that I’ll call and tell you, “Dad, we had the semolina, man that is such good stuff, I’m so glad you told me about it” and then I have to remember that there will never be another phone call, that I just have to be happy James and I love this bread, and I’ll mention it was his favorite, and life will move on. Because that’s what life does.<\/p>\n
My melancholy. The sweetness of love mixes with the acrid memories of sadness. Despite grief’s sharp, astringent bite, I am glad to find there is more love in the glass each year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
April 6. The day my father called & told me he had cancer. June 10 The day he died. January 22 His birthday. I will have these dates, like beads on a rosary, tied around my heart for the rest of my life. I’m glad today’s anniversary didn’t create paralysis, albeit, a little fluff of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[14,43],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/plazajen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1731"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/plazajen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/plazajen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/plazajen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/plazajen.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1731"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/plazajen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1731\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1732,"href":"https:\/\/plazajen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1731\/revisions\/1732"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/plazajen.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1731"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/plazajen.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1731"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/plazajen.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1731"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}